Overtime

Story Sports

Ed Daniels

LHSAA select school championships are history

In the reporting business they call it burying the lead.

That’s when something else is written initially, and then somewhere down the page, the real meat of the story, is found.

So, here’s the lead.

The LHSAA’s June 2nd meeting was wildly successful.

Why?

Because the association is forcing the select schools, the non-publics, to go back and play in the same championship venues as the public schools.

Me?

I can’t wait to go back to Sulphur and have a supposed state championship game halted by the umpires because a foul ball from another game was hit on to an adjacent field.

Don’t laugh.

It happened. I was there.

Gone are the superbly run championships by the select schools at all of their venues.

The biggest effort possible was made by a swarm of volunteers to make sure the athletes (remember them), had a championship experience.

The latest was in Hammond at Southeastern Louisiana for the select school baseball championships.

Despite rain hampering the schedule, praise was heaped on the organizers.

And, a lot of money was made.

Guess what?

After the LHSAA got their cut, the cash went back to the schools.

Which brings us to the tipping point.

In December, Jesuit and Catholic played for the Division I championship at Yulman Stadium.

The schools netted $150,000. Each school got $75,000.

That’s after all expenses, and after the Louisiana High School Athletic Association got their 10 percent cut, off the top.

The three football games played outside the Superdome returned a total of $264,000 in net profit to six schools.

Private schools rejoiced. Public schools, like Ponchatoula, who brought half of Tangipahoa Parish to their class 5A final in the Superdome, scratched their head.

Ponchatoula got a check for just over $11,000.

The select schools made all of this possible without one sponsor.

Outside sponsors were forbidden by the LHSAA.

So, that’s the lead.

Here is, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.

The executive committee also voted to change the definition of what is a select school.

If the current definition stands, most of the Orleans Parish charter schools, including football powers Karr and Warren Easton, would be select.

So, would John Ehret.

Yep, John Ehret.

Of course, schools can change their enrollment process, quickly, to conform to the new criteria, or we can wait till the January convention, when membership, the majority public schools, will likely vote by a wide margin to put things back to the way they were before.

Or, something close to it.

John Ehret doesn’t want to be select.

In January, the school voted against a proposal to re-unite the publics and privates in football.

That is their right.

And, in January, I can’t imagine a single Jefferson Parish public school voting for any proposal that would keep them select.

That is their right.

But, hey, at least in this space, we didn’t bury the lead.

The select school championships were quite successful.

And, poof, just like that, on a Thursday in June, they went away. BC

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